Motorcycles

Motorcycles

As in Colorado, motorcycles are everywhere. But in Haiti, they are used more as tools rather than as pleasure.

Everything here is expensive.  Cars carry a high price tag because of the import duties and shipping costs.  So do trucks … and equipment … and fuel.  Gas prices are around five bucks or more a gallon; diesel is higher still.  Motorcycles are an inexpensive form of transportation for many of the people.

Most of the motorcycles I have seen here are made in China.  They are not very big nor do they have the monstrous engines that the bikes in the States have.  I’m guessing they average around 200 to 250 cc’s for the typical bike.  They also have very quiet mufflers, in fact, it is really hard to hear them as they are coming down the road.  When stopped you can’t hear them at all.  Most bikes, though, have very loud horns; that compensates for their quietness.

Motorcycles play a major role in transportation in Haiti, not just for saving money and taking up less space, but they provide the same service as the tap taps.  If you recall, the tap taps are super small pickup trucks that have been decorated like fancy birthday cakes on wheels.  The beds are covered and have seats on either side along with hand rails and steps out the back.  They are constantly driving up and down the roads, pulling over at the most inopportune times to pick up and drop off passengers.  I’ve seen twelve to fifteen people crowded all over the tap taps.  A ride is generally a buck, so it’s cheap transportation.

 The motorcycles also provide a similar service.  They congregate around the tap tap stops and pick up and drop off passengers who might be traveling off the main roads.  It is common to see two or three passengers squeezed onto a motorcycle roaring up a dirt or gravel path, commonly called a road, to some distant and unknown location.  Today I saw three adults and three kids on one bike; one on the gas tank, the other balancing on the handlebars, the rest squished in between smiles behind the driver. It is a common form of transport and culturally acceptable.

The bikes also provide a working tool for these two wheeled commuters.  I saw a guy carrying a passenger who was carrying a ladder; perpendicular to the direction of the bike.  It was at least a six footer; I wonder how he fits between the trees?  The funniest sight is watching a bed mattress coming down the road. It must slow the bike down as it is kinda like hauling a large sail on the back.  I’ve seen animals, babies, boxes, groceries, and virtually anything you can imagine in the arms of a passenger merrily zooming in and out of traffic on the back of a motorcycle.  Yesterday a motorbike came down the road dragging a twenty foot piece of angle iron.  Sparks flew off like a grinder.  I wonder how much shorter it was when he got home?